


Everything's louder when you can't make a sound

by NoOneButNoOne



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Fireworks, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoOneButNoOne/pseuds/NoOneButNoOne
Summary: Jericho has a complicated relationship with sound. When the Titans are placed in charge of Jump City's Fourth of July fireworks, he may need a little help to get through it.
Relationships: Jericho & Herald, Jericho & Robin, The Wilson Family - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Everything's louder when you can't make a sound

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you’re all staying safe out there. Some assholes in my neighborhood got fireworks and think one o’clock in the morning is an appropriate time to set them off, so you get this. Enjoy.

For Jericho, sudden, loud noises were worse than complete and total silence. Of course, the sudden, loud noises were often preceded and/or followed by complete and total silence, so that didn’t help things, either.

He didn’t know when this fear started; it was just something that had always been a part of him. Something primal that he couldn’t avoid.

Jericho remembers when his father taught his brother to shoot. Cans and bottles set up in the backyard, Grant gleefully firing away, and Joey--he was still Joey, back then--hiding behind his mother and flinching at every shot.

Slade had laughed, watching his son burying his face into Adeline’s leg and shaking.

“C’mon, son,” Slade had said, “Don’t be afraid of that gun. Be a man like your brother.”

Joey shook his head and covered his ears until Adeline took him inside. If being a man meant being loud and scary, he didn’t want any part of it. He was three years old, then. He wasn’t supposed to remember that after all these years, but sometimes things just stick with you, especially if they left you hurt or scared.

Joey was hurt and scared again a few years later, when he was awakened by several sudden, loud noises. Windows breaking. Gunfire. Grenades. Men shouting. He tried so hard not to be scared, to fight back, but what could he do against armed men five times his size? And then there was the smoke--there’s too much smoke, and he’s choking, and there’s noise--his mom, she’s on the floor, he can see her--but they won’t let him go--they’re taking him away--

They took him away to the Jackal, who yelled at Joey when he started crying, which only made him cry harder.

Then, his parents came to rescue him. It didn’t go well. The men cut his throat, and there was so much _noise_ while Joey lay there, bleeding, until everything was dark and so, _so_ unbearably quiet.

Everything’s louder when you can’t make a sound.

It had been a relief, when Joey became Jericho and Jericho ran away. His mountain was quiet, but not silent, full of life and _peace_. Joey’s family had never been much for peace. Jericho, on the other hand, could fill the quiet with the gentle strumming of guitar strings. The animals that gathered around hated sudden and loud noises as much as he did, and, for a time, everything felt easy.

With the arrival of the Teen Titans came the return of the noise.

It was easier now that he was someone else, someone who could fight back, but the noise didn’t always mean fighting. Jericho had forgotten how loud teenagers could be. Even outside of fighting crime, there were pranks and petty squabbles, or superpowers malfunctioning. Some of them were just generally loud. The first time Cyborg shouted, “Boo-yah!” right next to him, Jericho jumped several feet into the air and took twenty minutes to stop shaking. He’d even heard Raven yell once, when he had to dive out of her way as she chased Beast Boy through the hallways.

Jericho was still in Jump City when the Fourth of July arrived, mostly because he’d forgotten about it with all the time he’d spent outside of the States. If he had known, he would have come up with an excuse to be far away from the city. Instead, the mute found himself helping with crowd control while the Titans oversaw the setup of the city’s fireworks display. The island Titan’s Tower rested on was an ideal spot for shooting them off, apparently. He could ask Herald to get him out of here before the fireworks began, but he didn’t want to bother his friend. Besides, what if the other Titans thought he was strange? Even the young Titans like Melvin, Timmy, and Teether seemed excited for the pyrotechnic show, so why couldn’t Jericho?

_“Don’t be a baby,” Grant said, teasing, as the soldiers fired off another volley in their twenty-one gun salute. Joey whimpered and covered his ears anyway. Slade said the same thing as Grant, but sternly, with a smack to the side of Joey’s head when Adeline wasn’t looking. The boy couldn’t even remember the reason for the ceremony, only that it was loud and full of strangers and he’d much rather be at home._

_Another volley of shots fired. Another squeeze of Joey’s heart in his chest._

_Why couldn’t they let me stay home?_

The fireworks had started.

Instinctively, Jericho’s hands moved to cover his ears. He started backing away from the crowds.

A _pop_ and a **_bang._ ** A _pop-pop_ and a **_bang-bang-bang-BANG!_ **

Red and blue and purple and green and white and gold.

People in the crowd cheer and “ooh” and “aah.”

But Jericho doesn’t see it. Doesn’t hear it. Jericho isn’t there.

He’s Joey again, and Grant is shooting another bottle. It shatters. His family laughs. He cries.

_“Don’t be such a baby, Joey.”_

**_Bang._ **

_“Get the kid.”_

**_Bang-sssssizzle._ **

_“Mommy!”_

**_Pop-pop-pop!_ **

_“Daddy, help me! Please!”_

_“Shut up!”_

_Cold metal is pressed against his neck._

**_BANG! BANG-BANG!_ **

_He can’t move--he can’t--he needs to move, needs to breathe--he can’t--_

_It hurts--hurts--_

_Help--_

_Dad--_

“Jericho!”

There are hands on his shoulders and he flinches them off, but they come back careful, gentle.

There’s a sound, muffled through his hands, and a bright light. The hands pull him through the bright light, and everything gets quiet.

The light goes away, and there’s no more noise.

The voice is telling him to breathe, and it’s counting. He’s pressed against something warm and soft.

“Breathe in...2...3...4. Hold...2...3...4...5...6...7. Out...2...3...4...5...6...7...8. Breathe in…”

He tries to breathe with the numbers. He starts out shaky, but the voice keeps counting, and there are careful hands moving through the tangles of his hair.

Eventually, he can focus enough to see that it’s Robin in front of him, counting his breaths in and out. Judging by the blue boots, he was nestled between Herald’s legs, resting against Herald’s chest, and those were Herald’s hands in his hair.

 **_Sorry,_ ** Jericho signs, his fist clenched tightly over his chest.

An almost pained look crossed Robin’s face, mouth turned down and eyebrows drawn together. “You have nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I should be apologizing to you. I should’ve known something like this could happen to any one of us, especially given your…y’know.”

 **_Dad._ ** Jericho’s hands shook. Herald’s hands stilled in his hair.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Herald murmured, and Jericho could feel the soft rumble of his voice through his chest. “We got you. It’s over. You’re safe.”

Jericho let himself lean into Herald and looked around. The only light came from the moon hanging above them, so they were clearly far from the city. The stars were easy to see here, without the light pollution, and he might have been able to find a constellation or two if he could force himself to focus. The three young heroes seemed to be sitting in a clearing of sorts. Cautiously, Jericho reached down to feel the grass beneath them, fingers catching on the edge of a flower he couldn’t quite see. It was probably the first place Herald could think of that was hushed and soothing. There was no chance of fireworks here.

 _But wasn’t Robin supposed to be in charge of the fireworks?_ He looked back to Robin, hoping there was enough light to convey the concern in his eyes. The other boy seemed to get the message. (Robin wasn’t sure if Jericho knew it, but the body-jumper’s eyes were a little bit luminescent, and his expressions were usually quite easy to read.)

“I left Raven in charge of the fireworks and Cyborg’s still managing crowd control. No one’s missing us.”

Jericho, thinking of the several times he’d caught Starfire looking at the masked hero now crouched in front of him, cocked an eyebrow in disagreement, making Robin sputter. Herald huffed out a sound suspiciously close to a chuckle. Robin may have blushed.

Grinning, Jericho reached out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Robin took it, and the mute pulled the bird over to flop down next to them. He gave Herald a little push to lay down, too, before flopping his head onto the trumpet symbol over Herald’s chest while resting his legs over Robin’s. Herald made an exaggerated “oof” sound, but wrapped his arms around Jericho all the same.

“Umm…” Robin whispered. “Did I just get pulled into a cuddle party?”

“Stick around this kid long enough, you’ll get used to it,” Herald replied. Jericho patted his hand consolingly.

They stayed like that for a while--perhaps for an hour, or two, or more--the two older teens making terrible, obviously wrong guesses as Jericho tried to point out various constellations. For a moment, their hearts were a little lighter, they laughed more freely. For a moment, they were just three kids lying in the grass, and everything felt easy.

**Author's Note:**

> (I can't even write an angsty vent with this kid without it getting fluffy. But, seriously, please don’t set off fireworks in a residential area in the middle of the night. It’s not cool.)


End file.
